IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Biomaterials Thursday Sessions
       Session BI-ThM

Paper BI-ThM3
Effect of Adsorbate Alkyl Chain Length and Terminal Group Chemistry on the Adsorption of Fibronectin and Albumin on Self-assembled Monolayers

Thursday, November 1, 2001, 9:00 am, Room 102

Session: Protein Surface Interaction
Presenter: C.M.-J. Fauroux, UMIST, U.K.
Authors: C.M.-J. Fauroux, UMIST, U.K.
C.C. Dupont-Gillain, UMIST, U.K.
R.W. Manning, UMIST, U.K.
G.J. Leggett, UMIST, U.K.
Correspondent: Click to Email
Recent studies of the responses of mammalian cells to self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have provided important insights into the relationship between surface chemical structure and cell attachment to artificial surfaces. Our hypothesis is that a mechanistic explanation of the correlations we have observed depends upon a detailed knowledge of the composition of the protein layer that coats the SAM prior to cell attachment and the conformations of the molecules of which it is composed. Of particular importance are fibronectin (fn), which interacts with membrane receptors (integrins) involved in cell attachment, and albumin (alb), the must abundant component of serum but thought to inhibit attachment. We have studied the adsorption of these proteins onto a range of SAMs to determine whether there is a correlation between the results of our earlier studies and the kinetics of adsorption of these proteins. The kinetics of adsorption of single proteins (human alb and human fn) have been studied for methyl, hydroxyl and carboxylic acid terminated SAMs with short and long alkyl chains. Two complementary techniques have been used. Using @super 3@H-radiolabelling, the mass of adsorbed molecules per unit area may be determined. Measurement of the amide band intensity in Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR) also provides a measure of the amount of adsorbed protein. Data obtained by the two methods have been found to be in close agreement. It has been found that more alb adsorbed to methyl terminated SAMs than to carboxylic acid terminated SAMs, while the smallest amounts of adsorbed protein were observed for the hydroxyl terminated surfaces.